Rebuilding
by ChuckNorrisLeftFist
Summary: Carlton Lassiter's identity is being a cop. How can his partner and a man who's had 57 jobs help him after a brutal attack seems to have ended his police career? Shules and rated M for major Lassiter whumpage.


AN: The ending of this little fic popped into my head first, and I let it stay. Then it started dragging the beginning in and I did get a bit unsettled. Major Lassiter whumpage.

* * *

Shawn opened his eyes at the ungodly hour of, oh, wait, 8:30. He should probably get into the office and yeah, first answer the phone that had rudely awakened him. Especially since it was Jules' ring tone.

"Hi, Jules, what's up?"

He heard a shaky breath. "It's Carlton. Shawn, he's hurt really badly. I'm at the hospital now, we all are."

"And one Shawn Spencer, coming right up." Okay, maybe that was inappropriate to sound so happy but then the thought of being with Juliet O'Hara, his real actual girlfriend made him happy. "What happened to him? I thought he was on vacation fishing. Did a fish-" Jules would have to give him credit for not finishing his question about what a fish might have done to Lassie to avenge all fishkind.

"No, that drug gang, he arrested three of their leaders and the convictions actually stuck, they kidnapped him on his first day out. They...they decided to make an example of him and, oh, Shawn..." That was actually Jules sounding like she was crying. The one problem with having a girlfriend, aside from occasional disputes about priorities, was how bad he felt when she was crying. Not that Juliet often cried, but when she did, it was like getting your heart skewered with beef jerky sticks. Good things, filled with deliciousness, but very bad when stabbed through your heart.

"Jules, Jules, hang on there, I'll be right there." He was getting dressed as he spoke and didn't even stop to brush and admire his extra manly/sexy hair. He cheered up a little when he heard Juliet verbally atomizing somebody who told her to stop using her cell phone. _That's Juliet. Who happens to be my girlfriend. Finally._

If Juliet hadn't been crying, he would have found himself one of those white coats the first thing in the hospital. But sometimes there are sacrifices to make and there are even times when it's a bad idea to borrow a white doctor's coat and pretend to be a doctor and walk around diagnosing people with all kinds of exciting new diseases that you make up. But if he had to come back to the hospital, he was so going to find somebody and diagnose them with Duran Duranitis. Or maybe inflammation of the Travolta gland.

The waiting room Jules told him to find was full of police, like a little police party. Except this was a party that had been thoroughly pooped. Of the seven police there, five had red eyes, tissue in their hands, or other signs of having cried recently. Buzz, Juliet, two officers he didn't know, and Karen Vick. One of the two others had water stains on his shirt, indicating that he'd had to wash his face rigorously. A slightly acidic smell as Shawn got closer told him that it was because he had vomited recently. Juliet had looked right at him but not registered him until he was only a foot away. She threw her arms around him in a way that would have ordinarily given their relationship away, except that there was nothing weird about his giving an upset Jules a big hug.

"Shawn...he's so badly hurt," she sniffled as he rubbed her back. He wondered why people always rub backs in circles or up-and-down, rarely sideways or diagonally, and let her continue to sniffle.

"Shawn," Chief Vick greeted him with dull eyes. Her face looked like a piece of crumpled gray tissue. It was a combination of no makeup and stress, he decided, but mostly stress.

"What happened to him?"

"It was the Wild Pride. He'd gotten three of their leaders. It humiliated them and so they went directly for revenge and intimidation. The sons of bitches made sure he'd stay alive but he might not walk again."

Buzz wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and Shawn felt it the situation had really hit him when he expected Lassiter to materialize from nowhere to yell at Buzz to man up and felt the burst of wrongness when Lassie didn't. Chief Vick continued, "They had him for four days and then threw him out of a car in front of the station. The driver behind them stopped in time. It was too late to pursue by the time an officer got out. She didn't get a number and didn't notice enough about the car but it doesn't even matter, the car was stolen and we know exactly who it was." Her voice was low and venomous. "The freaks posted videos to YouTube. Boasting."

"You were first on the scene?" Shawn asked the uniform who had closed his eyes when Karen had said "by the time." The guy had to be thinking that a few seconds more might have made a difference.

He nodded. "It was...bad. I've seen accident victims who looked worse, but...people did that. To one of ours." Shawn noticed that one of the other officers was looking green but didn't react to any of the specifics. Probably the other guy's partner, here for moral support.

Chief Vick straightened her shoulders. "They said it would be at least a few hours before they'll be finished with him. It depends on what they find. Then he'll need to recover from the anesthesia. O'Hara, you can stay. The rest of you, we're going back to the station." _She doesn't really want to go, her feet are pointing to the ICU like she wants to go in._

"I'll stay, too. In case there are psychic vibrations."

"That won't be necessary, Mr. Spencer, we know who's responsible." Chief Vick didn't sound that ready to argue. He suspected that she was waiting for him to arrive so she could leave Juliet with somebody to talk to.

"Nonetheless, the spirits are telling me to stay tuned."

"Fine, then. If you get anything useful, call it in."

Once the rest had left, Juliet dove back into his arms. "Shawn," she whispered. "It's so bad. I didn't even see that much but..."

Shhhh," he tried to soothe her. "Don't think about it," he offered, helplessly.

They waited together on the ugly green couch, where she rested her head on his shoulder. He stared around the room, at the outdated magazines, the speckled tiles, and the dull pink paint on the walls, including the spot where the painters must have done only one coat. He wondered whether it was the end of the day or whether they'd run out of paint.

A volunteer brought them coffee several times. She was in her late forties, expensively dressed under her light blue volunteer coat, wearing a large sapphire ring on her right hand but with a light line showing on her left hand where a wedding ring would have been. Recently divorced, got a good settlement, and doesn't need to work but wants to keep busy, Shawn decided. Probably hosted a lot of dinner parties, judging by the way that she automatically folded the napkins and arranged the cream and sweeteners on the low table and adjusted a magazine over a water stain without even seeming to notice she was doing it.

Finally, a doctor came out and approached them. "Officer O'Hara?"

She jumped up. "How is he? Can we see him?"

"He's still coming out from the anesthesia. The good news is that he's not in any danger. He came through it like a pro. We were also able to save most of his right hand and wrist."

"What's the bad news?" Shawn had to ask this one since Juliet didn't seem able to.

"We couldn't do anything for his eye. We simply won't know how much he'll be able to use his legs. It depends on how well he adapts to the artificial tendons and grafts, how much scar tissue builds up, and whether the nerves recover. He should be able to manage standing still and sitting, but anything else, there's no way of telling yet."

"What, what about his face?"

The doctor looked surprised for an instant. _He wasn't focused on anything that's just surface. Like a man's face. God, poor Lassie. And who'd have thought I'd really think that and mean it? _

"There will be some lasting scarring, I'm afraid. He might want to consult with a plastic surgeon if that's a concern." _Hmmm, just a little emphasis on plastic there. Somebody doesn't think much of other surgeons._

"When will he be awake?"

"Another twenty minutes or so. They'll have him in a room by then. The desk will have the room number in a few minutes." The doctor wasn't very interested in anything that wasn't about his work. Shawn decided that if he ever got the chance, this doctor would be in for a good taunting. He'd bring Gus in and they'd have a good, solid, thorough taunting festival.

Juliet got the room number and they went up. Shawn really, really, really did not want to go in. From the doorway they could see the end of the bed and a machine with 17 different numbers on it. Some of the numbers changed every second and others less frequently. Couldn't they just say that they'd looked at the numbers and then go home? Maybe he didn't have to stay, it's not like Lassiter would want to see him. But then, Jules had steeled herself to go in and she gave him her very best "I'm an inch from tapping my foot" look, so he followed her in.

Lassie didn't even look as bad as Shawn imagined, but he knew that was only because most of him was under the blanket or bandages or both. One eye was covered with white gauze and tape and there was a big bandage on his forehead and on his left cheek. His right hand was wrapped in a cast at the wrist and had strange looking white plastic splits attached to each finger. An IV drip was attached to his left hand. Shawn wished he'd stolen more of Gus' pharmaceutical books and actually read them instead of building a new fort for his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. If he had, he'd know what it was that they were dripping into Lassie. He pulled a chair next to the bed for Jules and one for himself, and sat holding her hand while she looked sadly at her partner.

According to the time display on the third machine to the right, only four minutes had passed before Lassiter's eyes opened. Juliet leaned close to him. "Carlton, it's me."

"O'Hara." He sounded way out of it and Shawn was surprised that he was able to identify her.

"Yeah, I'm here," she breathed, and touched the back of his hand.

"There's somebody else." Lassiter turned his head a few degrees and Shawn winced when he realized that Lassie was trying to see with his other eye.

"Shawn's here."

"Spencer?"

"Hi, Lassie. You're going to have a cool eyepatch." Well, he couldn't think what else to say, even if Jules' glare said that this was right exactly at the top of the list of bad things to say.

Lassiter just nodded vaguely as if he were satisfied with having identified the other presence in the room. "Where's Victoria?" Juliet flashed Shawn a panicked look and he managed to think of a way to say it, "She's not able to be here right now." Again, Lassie nodded.

After a few moments, he whispered, "I'm so tired. This is a long shift."

"That's okay, Carlton. You can rest now. I'm here, we're here, so you can rest. We've got the rest of the shift covered." He closed his eyes and seemed to be asleep within seconds. Juliet turned to Shawn, her eyes brimming in tears again. He hugged her and she whispered, "Outside."

She faced Shawn with eyes as frightened as he had ever seen on anybody. "Shawn...if he can't walk and has only one eye working...he'll never be able to be Head Detective. Not the way that he does things. Shawn, what will he do? Just a desk job, it would...it would kill him."

He tightened his arms around her. "We'll think of something, Juliet. We always do."


End file.
